Dr. Dennis L. Siluk’s has published 72-International Book. He is a poet since twelve years old, a writer, Psychologist, Ordained Minister, Decorated Veteran from the Vietnam War, Doctor in Arts and Education, and Doctor Honoris Causa from the National University of Central Peru, UNCP. He was nominated Poet Laureate in Peru. One of his books, “The Galilean”, took Honorable Mention at the 2016 Paris Book Festival and received an award from the Congress of Peru, for his cultural writings.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Six Tales and an Ode

Index

Osmoses

Passage to Elephant Island

The Little Russian Twins

Uni’s Street Corner

A Tale for the Times(The Vile Hypocrisy of Abdu)

Tale of a Young Tradesman

Ç&

The Black Death Ode

Osmoses

…

Wendell
in Walking in Review

Botis the Imp

1

It
startedoff
as a gradual unconscious process of assimilating, or absorption. As Wendell
Wormwood awoke one evening from a
nightmare, to find out, it was a real live demon espousing himself, like a
sponge into his flesh, —sitting on his chest—as if it was in the process of
demonic possession. The conjecture was to Wendell, that the demonic
rapscallion, was in the process of a middle state, or phase of osmosis of his
operation. Wendell continued to lay on his back as the terrifying creature sat
on his chest, Wendell feeling the weight to be liken to a hundred pound sack of
potatoes, and being no more the size of a bulky imp, resembling that of a
miniature triceratops. The nose much smaller than his horn like ears, but
widely spaced above his lips. Wendell
lifted his head some as to see the creature more restored, he had a beer-belly
as they say, brown and flabby, with pointed ears, as mentioned, like hooters,
with chicken-like legs and hawk-like feet, and he was trying to slide himself
completely in through Mr. Wormwood’s pours, like sweat coming out. And his tail
was long with a little shrub at its end, a pitifully thin looking lariat, in comparison.
As he moved to center himself better, his tail got caught on a spring under the
mattress and he tried like a: cow, sow, or hog stuck in barbwire trying to
wiggle it free, and that was when Wendell woke up, and there before his eyes,
lo and behold, was the netherworld creature called Botis, doing mêlée.

“What in tarnation is going on?” yelped
Wendell, eyes bigger than a car’s headlights. He was in the path of
amalgamation of course.

It was no nightmare, alias, it was
reality.

His bedroom was rather small, too small
to roll about in, so Wendell tried to pull, and push the demon out, by hanging
over the side edge of the bed. Then sitting upright the invader pushed deeper
beyond his forearm into Wendell’s ribs, and it vanished. Wendell’s eyes, seeing
this, turned crimson. No one in the house could hear him beating on the chest
of the demon to make him stop, or if they could, no one came to the rescue, for
his screams were quite mortified, loud, yet who would dare?

He was still tired and contemplative of
if this was a dream or reality.

“What malarkey is this,” he exclaimed to
the creature, looking straight into his stout ugly face that showed a mouth
wider than his forehead, with a goatee that dripped from the edge of his bottom
lip to the end of his neck, which ended up laying on his chest.

It was most difficult to turn right or
left in his present condition, which normally he slept on his sides,
nonetheless he found himself rocking and rolling to which he fell onto his left
side, after several tries, accomplishing it with a triumphal thump, shutting
his eyes as he did from the horrid face of the demon that nettled him, yet
still the demon struggled with his tail and you could see on his face a faint
dull ache, with a cynical looking demeanor, evidently he had never encountered
such a trial.

“Oh Lucifer,” cried the imp
emphatically, but only a figure of expression for he did not want the attention
of Lucifer, lest he be boiled alive for his ineffectuality, and slipup, “what a
grueling job you’ve given me.” Such was his work day, and throughout the night.
It was better, he had told himself, on many occasions: ‘It’s better than the
actual business in the warehouses of Tartarus, counting black sheep, day in and
day out’ which they called the new comers. Although his present
job—earthbound—was constant traveling or worrying about if the subject was
going to wake up, for seldom did they.

Lo, all of a sudden, Botis felt a slight
itching on his belly-button; slowly he let go of his left arm firmly attached
to Wendell’s shoulder, and as soon as he did, Wendell pushed the demon back
nearly all the way out of him, which caused an impediment for the ungodly
creature (there was no
discourse or dialog between the two, and to be frank that tail was causing the
imp to lose his repartee, likewise, Mr. Wormwood’s wits where coming to its
end, both now struggling without thinking).
Quickly Botis identified the exact spot of the itch, and scratched it with his long talons, as thick and long as
an owl’s, and a cool and relief shiver
run though him, and then he mumbled in a gibberish tone, “This getting one’s
tail caught in a bedspring makes a person look stupid,” contemplating his comrades
controversy should they find out in Tartarus, which they’d never see as a
mishap, rather a screw-up, —for eventually he’d have to go back to make out his
report, or better yet, his account,
while sitting down around the breakfast table telling his story… (While everyone would be chewing on a good
portion of fried cow guts. He knew this for a fact for they had century after
century accustomed themselves to it, they said it was good for the memory, so
the total health of the demon race of earthly spies, consisted in eating this
cuisine and gulping it down like ducks do water was ideal for their health they
believed... this was also said to disinfect their horrible breath! They also
ate this until their bellies were tight, and their navel would pop out,
agreeable for the long journey ahead. Then after picking their teeth with a
pig’s trotter, and their chatter was all complete, and the dice put away and
the stock of cards hidden in some dry place, they’d go to work again.) anyhow, as I was saying, while sitting down
around the breakfast table telling his story, that is to say, his encounter
over and over to each and every one, to one another of his pals, his chums, his
comrades in arms, whom would gossip like demon more often do, than not, and
like: pile lie upon lie, invention upon invention, propaganda upon propaganda,
like demon do until it is so unreal he’d become the pun and the laughing stock
of Tartarus! While each one of his pals,
and chums and comrades, would tell of their triumphs, ‘I’d be sacked on the
spot,’ he told himself, ‘if only I didn’t have to scratch my bellybutton, who
can tell?’ But say what you will, thought Botis, what is done is done, he
needed to remedy the situation, and do it quickly.

Then Wendell aimed with his right fist
at the imp’s chest, and knocked the demon from end-to-end of the bed like a
boomerang, falling eventually onto the floor, and one hand still on the end
railing of the bed, hanging on for whatever reasons, surely not for dear life!
His tail being released with a sudden jerk, and shredded from the pull and
thrust of the tumbling over the end-edge of the bed.

‘What a trying upset,’ mumbled Botis, as
if his pride was badly wounded, his composure and face in dismay.

The clock read it was half-past three
o’clock. Thus he figured it was still early enough to quietly move on from
Wendell’s house, and should anyone ask, who would be the wiser.

So Botis, quietly leaped from his loss,
leaped from the balustrade of the bed like a Bagdad thief in the night, with
stammering lips, a sneer at Wendell, through the dim tears that bathed his face
for such a screw-up Wendell could not see this of course, and all the better
for Bois, save, by and by, he’d have something to boast; consequently, he
seized the brimming windowsill with a cantankerous look, raised his strength up
into the air with outstretched arms and then looked down as if towards Hell
itself, bellowed with Machiavellian-eyes: “To you, ye gods hidden beneath the
earth,” expressing his surprise cunning
at his escape, leaping into the broad moonlight. The weather piercingly warm,
yet feeling somewhat fresh and active, trying to put on a pleasant look to his
face as not to look suspicious to his employer, or one of those Secret Service
Demon and Women (agents of
the netherworld) of Tartarus,
should he bump into one, such as the Viper Queen, as she was known, and Bit
Bertha, both Machiavellian-demon-ness, otherwise known as the
quadrilateral-sisters, whom were always looking for emoluments, for them to
look the other way, lest they make a nasty report on him. Nay, what then? (it
was game time, and I’ll tell you what games they played if they got bored, Bit
Bertha and Viper Queen, they played the old Tartarus games called: ‘Slash and
cut’, or ‘duck your head’ or ‘who’s got the fatter derriere’ or ‘catch and eat
the brown beetle’ or ‘whip the sow,’ or ‘fork the toad’ or ‘who can spit
thicker’ or ‘shooting feathered darts at cats and rat and dogs and hogs. And
then they’d stretch and sleep)

Bit Bertha

It struck the family members at the
Wormwood home, that it had been quiet, too quiet in Wendell’s room too long, as
they had previously been conversing to one another for some time on if they
should or should not become more aware of what was going on in his room, having
been standing by his doorway, and previously pacing the hallway alongside the
bedroom, much aware of some kind of commotion had taken place, although they
were there when it was taking place also. They unconsciously exchanged glances…
and one member asked loudly for Wendell to answer: “Is it safe to come in?”
There was no answer, no reply, Wendell had fallen back to sleep, and the family
members dare not open the door, err, they could wait until morning and let
Wendell tell the story, as they had drummed up to support.

Ah, it all was rather justification of
their own phenomenal cowardice; all pretentious, it was an impediment of their
character, where they had relied on Wendell for safekeeping, as they had always
told one another, as well as for his monetary support “…we’re in good hands
with Wendell.” Therefore to their amorous whispers, Wendell was left to his
own, had been left to his own. All had
the same obsession, all the same cynical smile, an expressible something or
other, that appeared to be like a trial, something too trying to try, and so no
one tried anything, and of course doing nothing, is doing something, which is
allowing whatever took place to take place. And so they would wait for the
results come morning, for the better or worse.

At the Kitchen Table

2

Family Gossip

Come Morning, Wendell looked about the kitchen table,
among his three family members—a tinge impudent, and risqué, they all stopped what they were
doing, bent their heads a shade—akin to know what took place, but shy to ask,
they all looked to be a bit fatigued to Wendell, acting as if wanting to scatter themselves but
Wendell seized the opportunity to exchange a few confidential words with them
at which point, they unbolted themselves, and asked him to join them, their
humanity more centered on commercial than the heroic story, the very one that
took place but a few hours ago in the wee hours of the night with the demonic
creature and his victory over him, and once told, they all felt relieved,
saying in unison, “Ah, a nightmare, of course!” Now unrepentant of their
cowardice idiosyncrasies they had displayed to one another, now thrown to the
wind, laughed at as if it was a finely woven tale of dark linen, with a change
in conversations to idiotic hearty maledictions, to oblige one another’s choice
in their decision not to have disturb Wendell during his trying nightmare. And
now they applauded one another of their own independence, as if they had done
Wendell some great service. For is it
not true, in such cases there always remains in the conscience some of those
dishonesties we pour into ourselves. It gives a better after-taste for one who
is selling unwholesome liquor.

Someone even made a joke of it, as if to
throw a pun at Wendell’s imagination, “Next time the demon will know better, to
kill the lion before he skins him!”

Said one voice to another: “My dear
sister Woolycat, fill this up until it spills over, if you please.” They all
were drinking wine as red as a cardinal’s cap, at the table. Wendell noticed a
fly had just drank out of his older brother’s glass, Wassermann, nonetheless it
bothered him little, he simply shooed the fly away like a beggar who had stolen
a coin from his pocket, and in one gulp
the wine was gone.

Aforementioned Wendell, with all
earnestness, said he: “Spiders do not spin webs for a single fly, or do they?” (A rhetorical question, more a wistful
statement) They twisted their
bodiessome, one to another, gave each other faint
glances, perhaps not grasping exactly what he meant by that, or perhaps they
knew and were in contemplation over it. For had Wendell not been successful,
they would have had to turn over a lot of stones to find the snake.

And there Wendell stood, in the anteroom
in reflection, discerning: there was more honor in cleaning a stable clean,
than warning them; for surely the imp was close by, and if he decided to come
back as often they did, he would assuredly look and most likely find a new stockpile of flesh to store
himself in. All said, Wendell, simply gave a nod with his head right to left,
mumbled as he left the house (belief so
sorely needed was not found, their caustic humor wounded him deeply…): said he: “To those cowards who can’t swim,
no river is shallow enough” showing repugnance towards the group as he went out
the front door, down the wooden steps, and on to work on an empty stomach,
holding pent-up feelings of lassitude. In return, all the group gave back to
Wendell was an air of bantering pity, a voice saying, “Ah, he is too sensitive!”

Now walking down the street, Wendell
inhaled the odor of the flowers in the nearby gardens, leaning his head on his
shoulder with a look of sweet nothings.
Their breath was no longer defused around him. And his soul was bathed
in a wave of infinite triumph, as he stopped to read the newspapers which lay
close beside him on an old man’s newsstand. The old man Epistemon did not take
the liberty of interrupting Mr. Wormwood, as to purchase the paper. Wendell noticed his embarrassment, and took
out some change to purchase the paper.With a mixture of
respect and dryness, the proprietor took the coins, in exchange. Wendell had
always thought himself to be a prohibitionist, for country and family before
anything, even if one must set up an embargo, but now he was ruling that out,
there was residue of pessimism, especially for the likes of his domestic life.

Eucalyptus Wood Park

(Contemplation)

3

Eucalyptus
Wood Park

Wendell
passed the whole of the afternoon in brooding over his anger and humiliation,
sitting in a nearby park, called Eucalyptus Wood Park, for its many Eucalyptus
trees he never made it to work. He reproached himself for not having given a
slap in the face to both his younger and older brothers, and the youngest of
the family at nineteen, his sister, Woolycat. But he laughed somewhat, over his
sister’s hiccoughing, while trying to pull the legs off the fly in her milk. He
told himself, “They’re just a jar full of wind, and all piss pots, no love of
truth.” His father used to say “Take heart boy,” in other words, don’t let them
get to you! But today they got to him, and last night they likewise, but not as
bad as being belittled by them at the kitchen table.

The sun’s rays quivered over his head,
as he was trying to look nonchalant to the passersby. And his sister always
playing the Gothic virgin,the Marchioness ‘…how narrow-minded,’ he
mumbled. And his older brother in his scotch plaid waistcoat, thinking he was
the cool-cat of the group. All three adult-ragamuffins, with depreciatory
smiles. They all reminded him of intolerant bishops and cardinals—that in their
hearts feel they are a grade or rank higher than you, –their thoughts perhaps
being: what do I care about
him after all! Yes, this is what he was feeling, in all its
repulsive thinking. Intoxicated with the preliminary steps—on the course to the
devil’s den. Forgetting, as his mother often said ‘This moment will pass, let
it be.’ How frustrating it was to see his younger brother, Wampumpeag, using
his fist for a mallet on his apple. And
how they mumbled their prayers like a monkey to get through with them, just a
put-on. All their little idiosyncrasies, were now cutting into him, twisting in
his brain like hungry angleworms in the hunt.

Then he got thinking of the wee hours of
the morn when the demon was leaving, how he tickled on the belly and under his
armpits, and on the bottom of his feet, to make himself laugh—should any of his
comrades see him, because he was not happy by far when he was flung across the
bed, and landed on his buttocks. And how he spat at the bed with a big gob of
saliva when he left, and let out some mid-flight, grabbing his codpiece to show
his dismay at Wendell.

Phlegmatic, he became just thinking
about the funny creature, the so called mammalian imp, as he thought of him.

His muscles in his larynx, those
containing his vocal cords that envelop in folds were sore, becoming tender, he
had been thinking out loud, talking to himself all this time. People walking
by, some flabbergasted but kept their distance, astringent he looked as he
expressed with his hands to his voice, excrescences of his emotions.

He paid most of the water bills the heat
and electric bills, the mortgage on the house, and grocery bills, they worked
at part-time labor and contributed when they could and when they could it was
like trying to stretch a goose’s neck another inch. Is there not an old French
rule, he thought: when the sovereign fails to fulfill the contract, justice
requires that he should be overthrown?
As for them, he swore not to see them again, for were they not part of
the empire of the Wormwood Dynasty, small as it was not doing their part. An
apartment could be easily found, and as money would be required in order to
possess the house they now lived in he would speculate in three months they’d
be thrown out, “So much the better,” he told his shadow, now sitting on a
bench, as evening stepped in. “What’s the good of it, why go back?” And he
heard in his head, “Yes, alas!” Then he artfully proceeded to speak in
flattering terms about himself. He did not know how to bring himself about to
go back there. Heaping up point on point and weighing their peculiarities,
eccentricities. In essence, whatever the
picture had been, it was now put on a much larger and darker scale. Where at
one point, he quoted his father: ‘These are matters of no consequence,’ but he
was having a hard time reckoning with the phrase.

The Woodland Hotel/Back Home

(Contemplation)

4

Ms. Woolycat (Sister)

At theWoodland Hotel,
Wendell Wormwood seized with a strange feeling of forlornness, as hour after
hour went by and he got bored, and it was 3:00 a.m., then 4:00 a.m., and each
hour was like eight hours, and on and on the hours came and went— thoughts
reverted back to his family. The idea of being away from them longer appeared
to him preposterous. They could be charming companions, he told himself in an
unctuous tone. It was as if all of a sudden he no longer failed to recall his
humanitarian spirit.

Next morning, late in the morning, he
returned to his abode. As he stood in the hallway, the coolness of the draft
from the open windows alongside of the staircase was refreshing. No doubt, in
the kitchen his family were waiting as if in a master atrium, for him to enter
as normally he would, the kitchen door slightly ajar.

The affronted Wendell took a glimpse.
Their voices rose to Wendell’s ears, mingled with old intermittent sounds he
was so used to: leg tapping sounds, moving the salt and pepper shaker, on the
rough wooden table sounds and sounds that were being made by playing with a
comb, sneezes and sniffles, and coughs and giggling, and moving the coffee cups
here and there. No doubt with Wendell gone, they had less entertainment.

He noticed his sister, Woolycat twisting
her fingers, cracking her knuckles, she was nervous as she glanced at him.
Cigarette ashes all over the table, smoke drifting about like little coal
clouds, they must had gotten up early, perhaps to figure out what to do, or
perhaps stayed up all night, the basket by the refrigerator was full of beer
cans.

At last he found his way to the table
and his usual chair was empty. Wendell could tell their minds were full of
curiosities. And he, he was silent, thus making the atmosphere heavy. So
thought Wendell ‘So much the better’ thus, this ether would avenge him for the
past. Evidently they had weighed his value, and said nothing concerning the
night before.

He couldn’t help it, his face was hot,
perhaps crimson red, and he saw it slightly in the silver coffee pot in the
center of the table. They, the three beside him, all received him with no
preamble, nor did he attempt to justify his overnight departure that seemingly
was pretty bothersome to the three. Then with distain he surveyed their faces.
He had come to the realization, if so, he would avoid the nightmarish drama he
had endured and allow them to live in an anonymous world, untroubled with the
unknown and very much so, forces of the netherworld that was silently beckoning
them subliminally, and in particular, the Nightmare demons, perhaps even the
return of Botis, or if not, his entourage, were already evoking stimuli below
the threshold of conscious perception, telling them, be quiet, your brother
Wendell is full of foolery.

At the Table Laughing

5

Viper Queen

But what was Wendell thinking, I mean he was deep
in thought, staring at a deep dish of pig meat in a bowel in front of him. He
was thinking nothing but good wine, a soft bed, his back to the space heater,
his belly full. He was also thinking,
God to preserve him from sickness and Our Lady to keep him from bad health,
Amen. And third, he was thinking a house without a master—even if his family
were a bunch of clodhoppers with white thighs, and remaining fooled by the
devil himself and his henchmen, and he was all they had, they were all like
blind people without walking sticks; all asses without cruppers; cows without
bells. He knew in their hearts they were crying out for him, that a house
without a master is like Notre Dame without its great and grand bells.

In the bowels of their brains, they had colic he told himself; this made
him feel more responsible for them. ‘Nothing but ding-dong, clitter-clatter,’
he mumbled. Then seeing something
strange moving about in the hallway, not saying a word about it a creature of
some kind, he started laughing until tears come into his eyes, he laughed so
hard he never took notice Crassus the bloodhound licking his pig meat out of
his bowel, and his laugh was contagious, because they all started laughing with
Wendell, all falling against one another, not knowing why, and never to know
why, but nonetheless laughing. Then the laughs died down. He had seen one of
the demonsdancing every-which-way in the hallway, upside down, on her hands,
and he heard that her name was Viper Queen, he knew now they were setting up
house, but mum was the word, his second mind told him. As for the family
members, they felt Wendell again amused them, and they all gave him a spoonful
of their pigmeat because Crassus had eaten most of his. Then came out a bottle
of wine, like old times. All was according to spontaneous reactions. Nothing
planned. All sat at great ease, while their kidneys settled, and their noses
dried up from running, and wiping them clean off their sleeves, until they all
had sores on them.

Nights Thereafter

6

The Devilsno longer bothered Wendell at his home, or
for that matter any place but for his siblings, that is another matter. At the
breakfast table now, each morning, each one complains of sounds in the night
that are of footsteps alongside their beds, and the creaking of the bed springs
under their mattresses. Filled with such terror, they get little to no sleep at
all. They feel they are being surrounded by these little creatures, Wendell
calls imps, creating a tempestuous atmosphere. And it is bothering the two
brothers and one sister of Wendell’s, for they seem to escape his lips, if not
his mind, he pays little attention to the complaints of his siblings, and they
are making accusations against him, as if he is in league with them, that is,
with the demons (for
Wassermann has been heard sleep walking and talking, and what he has said during
one of his escapades through the house, has disturbed Wendell some, but of
course he has not taken it seriously, and I shall repeat it for the reader: “I
need to seek a remedy for what I dread, what we dread, is this not a fair
judgment? And for this, man will often kill others who have done no harm. I
make no distinction between right and wrong.”)

The mystery of man, he has the choice to pick
out good or evil, what will be his choice is often times the mystery. That is
to say, will he discern between the rocks with gold, for the rocks with fool’s
gold in them? And if he picks the right
stone what will he do with it? Again that is the mystery of man, and what will
he do if it is too late, and he finds out too late, it is fool’s gold?

“Perhaps we were wrong,” said the older
brother Wassermann, “but now God has put a hedge, around you Wendell, and left
us to rot with the demons, it is as if he left us with the Black Death, can’t
you talk to him on this matter? It is as if God wants us to walk down the path
that snakes pass… (Wendell
closed his eyes as if he was hearing blasphemous remarks, thinking: perhaps as
Cotton Mather once wrote: ‘God will no longer defend the soul of the sinner
from the effectiveness of the devil’ that is to say, he punishes sin with sin,
as the Jew’s believe, and as it is written in the Book of Revelation)” And of course Wendell tells them to pray,
but they don’t. And night after night, they are interrupted to a high extent by
these scamps. And here is Wendell sitting at the kitchen table with an air of
greater self-confidence, squabbles the other three. In the nights before going
to bed, they circle the hearth, and engage in conversations on the disturbing
disquietude, on what to do and do nothing. Wendell has tried endlessly to ease
their minds by railing against the powers of Tartarus by having his family say
the: ‘Our Father,’ each night by the hearth, but in all earnestness, there is
no sincerity in their voices, therefore how must God see their hearts, Wendell
tells his second mind. But the imps have turned their world upside down for the
most part, and Wendell even feels Wassermann is osmosatised:
that is to say,
possessed.

At night the older brother would hearchattering
behind his closest, as if a few of the imps are talking on matters of no
consequence, waiting, just waiting for him to do something out of the ordinary,
they don’t want Wendell around.

As time goes on, week to week, and the
season changes, Wassermann as well as his younger brother and sister are
feeling more risky, willing to take more chances in doing something without
Wendell, but what? For something has to be done. Wassermann has told himself, he’s sought pity
from Wendell, for his sufferings, and got no advice but to‘pray’
and when he prays, his prayers are not answered, it has now produced in him
suspicions that perhaps Wendell is in association with the devil himself, much
like the Pharisees, who had tried to promote Jesus the Christ, as being in
league with; and if he is not, perhaps he should be. In other words, if you
can’t fight them, join them. And if the other party has joined them, do him
in. Wendell of course figures his
brother is just trying to pick a quarrel with him to torment him, kind of
having no one else to take his anger out on. So it of course comes out sideways
at him.

This last week, Wendell has been
somewhat surprised if not astonished at the stupefied looks he is getting from
his older brother. This appears to have turned into a mental or psychological
fixation for Wassermann, per near an ailment, and speedily.

Macabre

It is the evening of the last day in
September, later on, on that evening, this following macabre melee took place:
when the three were together by the hearth, Wassermann, Wampumpeag and
Woolycat, the conversation started:

“What does it mean when one sympathizes
with you and does nothing about it?” asked Wassermann to Wampumpeag, in front
of his younger sister Woolycat. And he answered his own question, “He’s a
wretch worm, Wendell is a worm!”

“Oh! —yes.” said Woolycat.

With promptness in lack of no decision,
the astonishing statement came out, “Should we kill him?”

“Good heavens, my brother, I am not
Cain, about to slay Abel.”

“Who’s Cain?” asked Wampumpeag. Without
answering the question, Wassermann, explained who Noah’s
grandson was, Canaan, by
saying, “We shall do like Canaan did to his grandfather, and do away with him,
by getting him drunk but we shall do like Cain did likewise and kill him.”

Without giving his brother and sister
reflection time he added, “Tonight, I suppose tonight we can do it.” It was a
little past ten o’clock. “We’ll get him drunk and kill him, go wake him up
Woolycat, tell him we are drinking and want his company.” She stood a moment
staring, as her older brother explained: “If we kill him the imps will leave us
alone, they told me so, I made a deal with the devil.”

“But they lie so much, Wendell says,”
exclaimed Woolycat.

“Go wake him up,” he commanded, and she
did as he asked. For he had this planned all along, he had it planned for a
week straight. And it just dawned on Wampumpeag, the whole room smelled of a
rarest perfumery. Wassermann had purchased it and sprayed the room. And he had
altered the position of the furniture, knowing once Wendell got drunk there
would be a struggle. It was a cold evening, and so Wassermann had brought extra
logs in for the fireplace, so it was not suspicious seeing them there, when
Wendell came home from work. And to be frank everything was already, ready for
his evil deed. He had even put into the fireplace, an iron rotisserie.

Wassermann’s alternate mind told him to
think about what he was planning, if he should or should not go through with it
‘Think well on this,’ it said over and over, and the more his mind said what it
said, the more wine, beer and whiskey he drank.
Thus he was in essence, dancing with the devil, half drunk.

In a slight foggy manifestation, Botis
appeared by his side and whispered in his ear, “The apple is ripe, we may count
on you, if not we must have another chat.” Wampumpeag saw the appearance, and
stood stone still in shock.

The question may arise, was Botis
talking to Wassermann, or someone inside of him? My guess is as good as yours.

Now Wendell came down with Woolycat, he
took a light glance at the preparations Wasserman had made, smelled the
perfume, Botis had disappeared, but was in the hallway and could hear a great
clamor behind the door, and when he glanced in, he saw Wendell in the hearth,
being roasted on a rotisserie like a pig, or perhaps more liken to a chicken in
that he was scratching the walls of the hearth trying to find a point of
support to assist him. His haggard eyes fixed with terror, the balls of his
eyes protruded. He produced a horrible coughing, convulsive shock set into his
muscles, chest, breath, his stomach shrank as if suffocating, and he sank down
with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, the infinite pains were
gone.

Outside a gentle rain stopped, cold gray
clouds floated past the moon, a wind appeared and it swept everything clean.

Epilogue

7

Wasserman Wormwood, had what might be called a fixation for he
found himself yielding to an incapacity to resist the temptation which clung to
him like white on rice to kill Wendell. This impertinence, disrespect, this
cold rudeness, was so great a feeling, that pride took possession of him. And
like a tornado, his love for his brother Wendell was carried away, disappeared.
Although he experienced a sense of relief, longing-suffering joy. Thereafter, a
need for violent action possessed him afterward and forevermore, to which, this
he did at random, until that is, until he was incarcerated for life, at some lifeless
dungeon no one knows were. And so the caviling with Wendell had stopped, and
the name of the pest that was said to have entered Wassermann, the entity that
is, was called ‘The Horticulturist’ or better put, the Planter (also known as Asder’el, who normally taught
the course of the moon to his students). Whom implored him, and soured his brain with
hellebore, a poisonous plant killing all those grey cells along with old brainy
habits, as for him to tutor and train him as a new pupil of Satan. “Better to do this,” said Botis to his
comrade, as to introduce him to the demonic society of learned men of Tartarus,
in emulation of whom his worth will recognized and increased as you well know,
and his desire to change his form of life and life’s habits will increase, to
show his worth, since Wendell gave him no worth.” And they did not waste an
hour or a day.

Wampumpeag on the other hand, the
younger brother between Wasserman and Wendell, became a monk in a monastery,
unsure if it was the Dominican or the Franciscan, or for that matter, perhaps
another, whatever the case, he found peace, and wrote these memories, to which
I have edited and filled in the gaps and put into place the sequential events.

As for Woolycat, she spent the rest of
her days, morning throughout the afternoon looking out through the window at
the people in the street. Botis, he now
clings on to her arm with his teeth chattering. She’s declared in her diary,
that Wampumpeag has now put into his memories, in which I am putting into better
English form as previously indicated, “I’m unable to walk twenty-steps, without
him pulling at my arm.”

Bymorning
Ernest Montgomery from Dothan, Alabama had decided to lay off the sightseeing
onboard the cruise ship, last he remembered the ship was somewhere between the
Falkland Islands, and the South Shetland Islands, to be exact, he’d soon find
out, they were docked momentarily off the north shores of Elephant Island. Ernest
had been getting tired of the trip, if not bored, from: Buenos Aires, Port
Stanley, around Cape Horn, Chile, docking at Ushuaia, Argentina for eight
hours, the principle reason for taking the cruise was to make his life more
exciting, and he wanted to be around young women, he was forty-five years old,
freshly divorced, and he was discovering, the longer the trip, the older the
clientele—it was a fifteen-day trip, and there was only a few stray women, and
they were bitchy and older than him by twenty-years plus.

With nothing to do but complain, Ernest decided to get as drunk as
scotch whiskey would make him. He found a nice corner in the bar and by
mid-morning two pints had been consumed. The remainder of the morning he spent
on deck looking at an odd island, everyone called “Elephant,” and some called
it “Hell-of-an-Island.”

He went back into the bar bought another pint of scotch whiskey. And he
went back out to the deck; the wind was white and raw. Then he heard a voice
over the ship’s microphone system, it was the Captain, “Elephant Island,” said
the Captain, “is 779-miles West-southwest of South Georgia, and 581-miles from
the south of the Falkland Islands, and 550-miles southeast of Cape Horn, and we
are now three miles in front of it.” Then
he heard him say, “Excursion! those who want to go to the Island meet at…” and
then he stopped hearing, and saw a blond, pathetically he followed her to where
folks were signing up to take the excursion, he had missed her among the nearly
two-thousand passengers onboard the ship, perhaps near thirty on the three
zodiacs preparing for the excursion (he simply put an X for his name on the document—a manifest, for those
intending to go to the island, he was too drunk to do otherwise). He wiped his hands over his face as if to
wake himself up, “What’s the matter?” said the young woman, the very one he was
attempting to pursue, his face wet and appearing as if he had been crying, but
of course he hadn’t been; and now the ship was even closer to the Antarctic island.

She pulled the scarf out of the way from her face, standing in line
waiting to board the small craft and getting her lifejacket, putting it on, and
clamping the three clamps together, readying to go to the island, Ernest really
not too aware of anything, just in heat over this young damsel, did likewise—a
monkey see monkey do, kind of thing.

“Nothing’s wrong kid,” he said sharply to the young woman, adding, “Why
did something go wrong?” he questioned.

The girl turned her back, she was hurt, and seemingly one could hear a
few sniffles, as if they were sighs.

“Say what’s the matter with you anyway?” he asked the girl, “you nuts or
something? Let’s get out of here and go to my room instead of this stupid
island trip! Okay?” but she never turned around again, and so Ernest simply put
on his lifejacket, as did the thirteen other people getting into the small
zodiac-boat—although he hesitated, thinking, perhaps thinking why waste time on
this stuck-up chick and this stupid excursion, but before he could deliberate
any further—or completely, they were on their way to the area where Ernest
Shackleton had made his campsite, in 1916, along with twenty-two of his
companions—to Point Wild.

The closer the inflated zodiac vessel got to the island, the more
inhospitable it looked to Ernest, “Say,” said the young lady, the very one
Ernest had tried to pick up, “are you soused?”

“No, I’m as sober as a dead rat, what’s it to you lady?” said Ernest. It
was as if she was trying to rekindle the candle—figuratively speaking, the one
he had lit, and rudely blew out.

“That’s right,” he said, “hell, I’m sober enough to swim to the island,”
and she laughed, and for once, Ernest took that serious look off his face and
laughed with her. But the fact was, and the fact remained, he was more near to
being soused than he knew, and saw only blurs of her, and blurs of the island,
but he hid most of those drunken mannerisms somehow.

(Onthe Antarctic Island
called Elephant—at Point Wild, a plateau area residing next to a mountain on
the northern coast…) “Well,”
said Ernest, he pulled out a cigarette, sucking deeply on it, walking a
distance away from the group, to pull out his pint of scotch whiskey and have a
drink—and he’d end up drinking the whole pint behind those dark wet granite
walls; the young woman by the name of Pilar, took no notice in where he went,
and the rest of the group, didn’t even know he existed—and on the official
paper—the document or manifesto (program,
indicating who was there, and who was who),
the one he was supposed to have signed getting into the vessel for the
excursion, the very one he had simply placed a smeared X on, the very one that
looked more like a mistake than a name, and there he sat on what might have
been a hidden corner where Shackleton himself sat, smoking and drinking, and
then he passed out.

“Well, I—say, folks let’s board the zodiac-craft and head on back to the
ship,” said the young navigator, in charge of the excursion. As they neared the
ship, Pilar began to look about for Ernest, said to the man sitting next to
her, “Say, where’s that man that I was talking to before, do you know who I
mean?” Not knowing his name. And the man pointed to someone at the other end of
the vessel, who was seasick, and had his head in his palms and his elbows on
his knees—who could have been anybody, and the young woman thinking he was
still drunk, simply said “Oh yes, the stinking drunk. I started to take a
liking for him.” And left well enough alone, thinking no more of it.

The ship now was at sea, heading for Paradise Bay, Ernest Montgomery, on
the island, alone, just waking up. It was pretty cold, and he was having a hell
of a time trying to focus his eyes, he dashed out from behind the rocks—unaware
of how long he had been passed out (sleeping) but knowing he had been, and hoping it
wasn’t all that long, and noticed the ship was gone.

“How in hell can I get…!” he said out loud, and several times the voice
of his mind mimicked him, with the end of the sentence, ‘off this damn
island…!’ And there he stood thinking, talking out loud, “She was so crazy
about getting my attention, she’ll tell the captain and they’ll come back.”

Then after a long while still standing waiting to see the ship return,
—the voice of his mind scolding him—, he
mumbled, “I reckon that cutie likes me, why didn’t she come across quicker, she
perhaps…perhaps (and lost
his train of thought)… how in
the hell can I get out of here!” (It really
wasn’t a question, but a disparaging statement.)

He looked about—up and down the ice-covered mountainous island (its tallest peak, nearly three-thousand
feet), elephant seals were
observing him from afar; other than that, there was no significant flora or native
fauna, just a few penguins and seals found moseying about Point Wild and its
coast, and a fog and snowstorm was appearing, slowly coming in… he knew he
didn’t have a high cold threshold nor an extreme weather tolerance, and there
was no ship insight, and his pint of whiskey was empty, and he lit his last
cigarette staring out into the sea, waiting, just waiting, continuously
waiting, bored to death, and nearly frozen to death—not believing he was
marooned on an island no more than ten by two kilometers east to west in the
Antarctic waters—waiting, just waiting for the ship to return—continuously waiting, and bored to death…

Nochildren
ever looked so scornful, so undignified-than Yulie and Anatolee, the little
Russian twins, gossiped the neighbors as they passed through Prince Lane, a
rich neighborhood, on their way to Pleasant Elementary school each morning. But
no matter who peered from their windows, porches or lawns, they would have to
admit, Yulie and Anatolee walked splendidly together: chatting along the way,
and showing very much interest in what one another had to say, not noticing the
onlookers.

Yulie, the youngest of the twins by nine
minutes, wore oversized shirts, short pants and a jacket-with three shades of
colorful dirt: sandals that were made to fit his little feet by squeezing them
in.

Anatolee, the elder, wore basically the
same except for a hat which he found some months past and never seemed to take
off. Both wore the same clothes, —it appeared: winter, spring, summer and fall,
except for trading with one another every so often. And for lack of a comb,
their hair looked always to be a bit messy.

At school, the well-to-do children often
ridiculed and teased Yulie and Anatolee for their broken speech, dirty cloths,
and messy hair. But the twins never laughed back, got angry, or gave it much
notice.

One day during class, Mrs. Rightbird,
Yulie and Anatolee's teacher, asked Yulie, "Can't you and your brother
afford a simple comb to groom your hair with before coming to class?"

"We have very little money,"
replied Yulie, "and what we do have must be used for food, paper and
pencils so we can eat and learn; because of this, we feel a comb is less
important, and use our fingers, which cost nothing."

This angered Mrs. Rightbird to the point
of stomping her feet and yelling: "How disrespectful you are! I will
surely have to talk with your parents about this."

Angered again, Mrs. Rightbird yelled,
"You both are disrespectful and out of place! Have you no manners at all?
I would never let my children dress or be seen the way you two are!"

After school that day, Mrs. Rightbird
went to the main office to check Yulie and Anatolee's records, hoping to get their
address and telephone number. But to her surprise she found the records
contained only their first names, grades and the date they were admitted into
school. How mysterious she thought, for the twins had been at Pleasant
Elementary going on two years.

As the children arrived back at school
the next day, Mrs. Rightbird pulled Yulie and Anatolee aside and questioned
them about the odd files she had found, demanding she be given an explanation
promptly. Yulie quickly explained that at the time of admittance into school
they had no residence and was in search of one—but, that they had one now. She
then demanded it be given to her.

"One Riverside Lane," replied
Anatolee.

"Is this an apartment?"
questioned Mrs. Rightbird.

"No," said Yulie, "it's
kind of an old castle."

Having heard this, Mrs. Rightbird left
Yulie and Anatolee to their studies.

That day after school, uncertain the
twins had given her the proper address, she followed them on their journey
home. They walked through the rich neighborhoods, the inner-city, down to the
riverbank, and then alongside the Mississippi River, and its neighboring
ancient tall cliff walls, which gave light to many caves.

After walking a short distance further,
Yulie and Anatolee entered a small inlet that led into a vast inner cave. Mrs.
Rightbird followed close behind. Inside the cave, Mrs. Rightbird hid behind a
huge rock that looked like an ancient pillar, while observing the twins. Yulie
went quickly to the center of the cave where a fire was barely burning. He
picked up a few pieces of driftwood—gathered the day before—and set them in the
center of the fire to feed it. Anatolee joined his brother. Both of them, then
sat down harmoniously on separate wooden fruit crates, resting from the long
walk and absorbing the fire's warmth from the brisk fall air.

They gave thanks to God for the day, the
food they were about to eat, the chance to learn, for His presence and love.
After a moment of silence, they gave thanks for their loving and caring parents
who had brought them to America for freedom, —although deceased now.

Mrs. Rightbird leaned tiredly against
the wall of the cave. She thought of the humiliation, shame, and disrespect she
and others had tried to inflict upon these two young immigrants. Then with a
tear gazing at the twins, she thought how fulfilled they appeared to be, how
simply pleased, how noble.

It was a chilly morning in early winter 1933. And as usual, Uni and Grandpa
Walter readied themselves for their journey to Uni’s snowbound street corner in
downtown Minneapolis, where Uni would sell her pencils. Uni who lived with
Grandpa Walter—now aging with arthritis and light symptoms of forgetfulness—was
always pleased to have her Grandfather accompany her each morning, although he
could only walk her part of the way. And when evening came Grandpa Walter would
be waiting—promptly at five—right where he left Uni that morning to walk her
back home. And although Uni was blind from birth, with her cane and keen senses
she never lost her way.

This morning as they were walking Uni
made a request. She asked her Grandfather to keep her company that day, saying
(with her broken English):

“I vant all my friends to see my very
special Grand-Papa.”

Grandpa Walter hesitated with an answer,
remembering Uni had asked so many times before: could he turn her down again?

Walter walked silently, rubbing his arms
for warmth from the brisk winter wind and shifting cold snow. He waved to Ernie
the milkman and Tony the mailman on his horse drawn sleigh, and Orve (a rag
collector during the summer months and part-time janitor during the winter
ones) walking towards downtown on the opposite side of the street. Walter
thought, mumbling out loud: ‘Orve is on his way to pick up some sausage at the
meat market, he does every Thursday.’

Grandpa Water wanted to say no, but just
couldn’t. “Yes, Uni,” he replied, “if it pleases you I will.”

With a cry of delight Uni quickly hugged
her Grandfather.

“But” said Grandpa Walter, “I will have to
finish some chores at the house first. I will meet you at noon.”

“Dat’s fine Grand-Pa Pa,” chuckle Uni
with pleasure.

As Uni stood on her street corner
that morning awaiting for noon to arrive (pencils in one hand, a tin bucket
half filled with pencils in the other, thus, allowing folks to drop coins into
the bucket while taking a pencil), she talked to a few regular customers that
stopped on by: and upon their departure, asked them for the time. But to her
disbelief, it was only 8:20 a.m. ‘Gosh,’ she thought: ‘when you’re waiting for
something special to happen, as having your Grandpa to keep you company for the
day, time sure goes slow.’

As Grandpa Walter readied himself for
his journey to Uni’s street corner, he thought about how his son had stayed in
Oslo, Norway after being stationed there in the American Army during World War
I: and married Anna, Uni’s mother (a Norwegian citizen). It was just four years
that December when he had traveled to Oslo to attend their funeral: a fatal
train accident had taken their lives, whereupon, he decided—during his stay—to
take Uni back with him to America.

He thought—putting on his jacket—how
retiring from the South Saint Paul stockyards two-years earlier gave him time
to enjoy life, and his granddaughter: and how his small pension and two-bedroom
house (paid for) on Glenwood Avenue made him feel secure, and his golden years
brighter.
Uni, awaiting Grandpa Walter,
asked everyone she knew—or thought she knew—to be sure to stop by and get
introduced to her grandfather who would be with her that afternoon. Most of
Uni’s friends replied with a warm yes. A few strangers, who were mistaken for
acquaintances, were promptly apologized to and they went on their way.

There’s the judge, thought Uni. He’s on
his way for lunch like always at 11:15 sharp. Uni knew it was him because he
would always tap her bucket before dropping in a dime and taking a pencil from
her right hand. Before he got too far, Uni cried: “Mr. Holms! Mr. Holms!”

“Yes, Uni?” replied the Judge.

“My grandfather is going to be vith me
today; maybe you’d like to meet him?”

“Well Uni, if he’s here on my way back
I’d be delighted to. Bye for now!” replied the judge.

“Boo!” said Grandpa Walter behind Uni in
a soft way as to not scare her.

“I knew it vas you Grandpa,” replied Uni
with delight.

“Well—how is my special and only
granddaughter today?”

“Oh fine,” said Uni nervously. “I’ve
been telling my friend’s dat you are going to be vith me today.”

“Yah!” said Walter unexpectedly, “Do you
think that was wise?”

“Oh! But vhy not Grandpa? I vant them
all to meet you,” answered Uni.

With a smile Grandpa Walter replied:
“And I’m very please you do; and so they shall.”

About twenty minutes elapsed. “Well,”
said Grandpa Walter, “where are all these fine friends of yours?”

“They’re out to lunch Grandpa,” answered
Uni.

Then just that moment appeared Mr. Holms
the judge: thereafter, Viola and Mr. Solman; then came Ted the barber, and Mrs.
Branch the seamstress, one right after the other. Uni introduced all of them to
her Grandfather but something was wrong, very wrong. They all seemed somewhat
uncomfortable, unfriendly—not like they usually were. And surprisingly to Uni
none purchased any pencils as they normally would before leaving.

On the way home that evening,
Uni—bewildered because of her friends’ attitudes—questioned Grandpa Walter
saying: “I just don’t understand. All my regular customers came by and they
were so unfriendly. I just don’t understand.”

As they walked further up Glenwood
Avenue, Grandpa Walter hesitant replied: “Uni, I know why.”

“Oh tell me Grandpa, did I do something
wrong?”

“No Granddaughter, you did nothing
wrong. It’s simply because—because your skin is a different color than mine.”

Uni stopped walking, stared in the
direction of her grandfather, hesitated a moment, and said: “Oh Yaw?” She took
Grandpa Walter’s hand in hers. “I never noticed. In my world Grandpa,
everything is dark. Is there a difference?”

Grandpa Walter answered: “I guess it
depends what world you wish to live in. I myself prefer yours.”

Alas, all that my old age calls for: sleep
and restfulness, I still must write this tale I plainly see; thus I shall have
to load my frail shoulders, take pen in hand, and write for by the devil’s evil
and my sweat; I am fed to do so. On this I am resolved, and shall call it by
name ‘A Tale for the Times!’ and somewhere add a subtitle. And as you will
read, or perhaps be able to see, the Devil’s inmate, will be—and in this case,
he and his comrades in arms, have already and continue to be—storming across
Iraq and Syria with a sting of fury.

Daesh

Sothey went on, and on, rising and rising, the militant group,
called the Islamic State, and their Army, wasting, pillaging, and stealing,
killing men, women, children, and the elderly alike, inthe clap of an eye. And the world outside the Middle East did
little to nothing, in the years of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2014 and 2015 A.D. In
doing what they did— near nothing, thus, nothing was too hot or too heavy for
them—the world being too busy with the crisis in the Ukraine over a Russian
invasion, and China expanding its trumped-up territorial rights, with might:
push and shove, in the South China Sea, always testing the waters to see how
the United States will react; Iran and North Korea, with their touch and go
trick and slick dialogue while building up of their nuclear arsenals, to do
what? Only God knows, or perhaps the Devil too! …. So IS, they continued to do
what they know best, do best: trashing and smashing ancient ruins, humankind’s
artifacts representing their ancient cultures, roots: demolished overnight! All
in the name of Allah 19, of whom to the Muslim, and
Mohammed Islam’s prophet, is the
one God, Lord of Heaven and Earth, not necessarily the same Trinitarian God
considered by the Christian, —throughout
Iraq and Syria, with grueling fury; with spit and spite, labor and
might; alongside: infiltrating, fighting Syrian Kurds, and the Iraqi
government, the Kurdish society, the Syrian government, and ducking from the
warplanes of the North Americans dropping bombs hitter-skitter, hitting
every-which-way, whom have protested when asked to put their soldiers’ heels on
the ground, and for good reason, after a ten-year war, and draining the
American economy of its resources, hesitate out of dissatisfaction. And although the bombing by the Americans do,
and are doing their job well: of seek and destroy, with well over 500-sorties16 below
their wings thus fare, leaving black spots amid open terrain, in buildings,
trenches, on mountain tops, across bridges, fortifications, destroying bunkers,
mosques and local townships laying bare to be seen, eaten by scavengers such
as: vultures, jackals, local dogs, rats, ants, worms, pulling and stretching
out human entrails, scattered brains, sucking up pools of blood, gnawing at the
bone marrow of entrenched in arms and legs; the wild beasts have their choice
of a heap of dead thus far; and the
dying pell-mell, recklessly looking for shelter beneath the footsteps of those
supersonic jetfighters, and for the pilots everything remains motionless out of
sight out of mind, everything is a diagram within the cockpit on screen hence
the dying unseen; the dying, dying with open mouths, arms out spread, soldiers
holding their weapons in disarray, steeped in blood that which has been thrown
from a distance cover their faces, splashed onto their attire. And they ask,
nearly beg the Americans to terminate this means of “Show of force,” lest they
behead one of America’s own, the US journalist James Foley, abducted in Syria
in 2012 and Steven Sotloff, captured in 2014, but the shower of bombs keep coming
no matter what; matter of fact, President Obama expanded the military campaign
against IS1, ‘You don’t deal with the devil’ says the
pentagon in essence, casting Abu and Satan as: like to like, liars. And the
earth trembles with the shock of the bombings and everywhere those heavy
American pebbles command respect, yet again all is known, this alone will not
halt the willed enemy, for total victory it will be the foot soldier, and the
willing. Even wounding severely Abu, the
war needs to be won by the defenders of the land, the Iraqi Soldier, whom, for
some odd reason, expects the world to take the lion’s share of the burden, or
so it would seem. IS, a branch always heading towards Baghdad, always heading
towards Baghdad, Damascus being already theirs? Contest all within its sights.
Some Sunni leaders welcomed them, some not, some give an intrepid exhalation, a long and arduous moan
of triviality if not meaninglessness.

If Abu had his way he would spit upon
the placidity of peace; in a like manner, Abu spoke aloud in the dark of war,
putting on his right boot first, henceforward, making a strict sign in his
discipline for the world to see: for those under his command to have no mercy.

When the Americans left Iraqi Abu saw
Iraq was a newly discovered amulet,
found by chance at a moment of peril, because there was a void in the country,
and all put aside: they could and world, start blackmailing the Middle East, by and
by. The United States Pentagon has been and continues to be alerted time and
again to this dilemma, then Ramadi fell, how could this be? Eight-hundred IS
soldiers terrorizing over 30,000-Iraqis. Thereafter, militants went door to
door, looking for sympathizers, thousands fled the city, becoming refugees, and
those who stayed got killed. The priests, preachers, physicians, philosophers,
professionals of all kinds; surgeons, lawyers, merchants, they all followed,
one after the other, trying to escape this apocryphal militia. The cities
throughout large portions of Syria and Iraq, by order of this leading
warmonger, were ravaged, and those who stayed—the poor devils—knew not which
saint to pray to for many were Christians, or what devil to hide behind, for
those who were pagan, and the unwilling Muslim, he too was no exception. And
behind stone walls stood Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi15, or better known to his supporters as
Amir al-Mu’minin, the Caliph Ibrahim, 15 thinking he was safe and sound, as once
Mohammed did in Mecca.

Abu

Abu, young
gallant, jovial resourceful, bold, resolute, with a fine outstanding nose,
mocking the world, waving his index finger—as if he was the incarnation of
Black Death—as if it is all a joke,
carrying on this atrocious war. A
Muslim, in farce dogma, to his very teeth; that is to say: he was, still is, an
imposter, pretending to be Islamic by nature not by decorum or protocol, far
from it! Furthermore, using it for a shield, it remains a sham, or better put: a
mockery, this he displays to his very knees with no reprieve, and thinks: ‘Why
relinquish now, — why should I start sacrificing all I have done to make Islam
a tool for my personal confederation of war against the world.’ Which is his
ultimate goal, which he has done so very well, so far ((like
the warrior-gods of old—in the first century of Islam, even announcing himself
as Caliph Ibrahim, or God’s Deputy he is inspiring fear; in addition, trying to
change the face, and the name of his cutthroats, to become a state, or
caliphate, and he being its caliph)(to Abu, it is to no purpose to adore Islam,
it is a name and nothing more—it is a means to an end, which is a continued
Jihad on the West if not the world as a whole but first things first, he must
control the Middle East, then make the course of Islam, without any attempt to
understanding its meaning and at the same time changing its will: destiny and
death!))

He is now the world’s new Enemy No:
2 (with a ten-million dollar bounty on his head) who looks
more like a grape picker than a IS Topmost. One who reads the Qur’an daily, yet
forgets it meanings, doesn’t practiced its precepts, and as for peace, he is
not a peacemaker, more simply a peace preacher, those who do not seek, but
preach it in pretense: superintending: ‘The Cow’ from the Qur’an 17, for does it not say:
those who spread discontent in the land will suffer God’s hand—; he has
no fear of God or man.

Does he not know, God had already balanced and weighed him for his sins,
and he is found lacking; indeed, he is in-need, if to avoid the intestines of Sheol20which is alsocalledHell or its deeper root: Tartarus. Indeed,
he is in-need of a better understanding of God, for knowingly shedding blood,
and discontent and a thousand other diabolical rudiments of sin, and threads of
sin on top of sin, according to the Qur’an, is condemning. For he has forgotten
what God said to Adam: “I know…what you hide?” 17

He is no different than Iblis8, the Insolent.

And for those who look for humbleness in this man, as his Sacred Book
requires, and as all such believers should have, none will be established.
Again he is found wanting, and in-need. This is the man…

Suru’el

Consequently, God sent
down an angelto speak to Abu with proverb, a sign which
presaged death: “Take heed there will come a day when no intercession will
matter. God will make the clouds spread over you and not send manna as He did
in the days of Moses, but lightening and fire and death, and plague upon you
and your nonsensical others, and all that you will hear is the raucous of the
grasshopper, for you and your lot will be buried among them.”

And the Topmost whispered, for he was bedridden, dying, “No, God will
not have retribution, for I am not wicked. I did no worse than Mohammed in his
day, when he cutoff the heads of his enemy by the wheelbarrows, and had them
taken to the furnaces, and outdoor fires, and buried them deep in the sands of
Arabia.”

Andthe angel understood, who was called by the name Suru’el †(for he is of eternity and trembling), “First,
Mohammed, he suffered from
anger and hate, filaments of Iblis, to which he had inside his breast: to name
a few: madness, — the hunger for power by way of war and more war, the hunger
to be worshiped, like Lucifer, the lust of Cleopatra of Alexandrea. Alas,
men imitate, but that is no excuse, you and he will have many days with Iblis
to discuss this very matter, as it will be shortly written into: ‘The Book of Deeds.’17 But what
I wanted to say, or was about to say, what I came here to say, is: you disgrace
God and have become indigent. You have become the apes of the world, despised!
To God you are the cow with the blemish, unyoked, and not even good for
plowing.”

And Abu lay there like a dying peacock looking deep into the messenger’s
eyes, evasive hiding
behind shadows inside his head, like a tree-squirrel hiding his nuts, thinking,
thinking, foul-smelling sticken-thinken’: ‘They packed bodies in carts like
potatoes, we had no time like them—like
Mohammed—to find coffin makers,
so we buried them in the sands, burnt their remains, dragged them to pits used
for reception of filth, some were tied to stakes as they were inspected, as I have done, and I
throw pebbles at their faces, as Mohammed had thrown dirt and dust, to hear
them cry out, as they suffered from vague
melancholy, all absorbing the agonies of death to be—I know this, but I
was no different than Mohammad; some ate them and spit them out like apple
seeds, like Mohammad in his day did, we are justified like he was, defending
our faith, we made no mistake, if I am guilty, then Mohammed must be?’

And the angelic being having been able
to read his mind, said, “Remember the “Story of the Cranes” 17 also
known as the Satanic Verse, that it involved Mohammed and three Meccan
Goddesses. To which he was covering up his lie, by saying the devil tricked
him. This is not so unlike you who hide behind shadows, wanting to do away with
God’s dicta, for you grudge against the world, you are Satan’s sycophant.”

“Mohammed later retracted that
statement,” said Abu, “that is, the verses saying Gabriel had instructed him to
do so; whereas, Satan had gotten him to drink too much wine, and he messed up
the prophecy.” Exclaimed Abu, affirming it was a simple matter of human
frailty. All in all, the angel was silent on this matter, he knew Abu was not
devoted to God’s cause, that he was guided solely by the prescriptions of his
root. For he could see in his face how he enjoyed to see the common people in
fear and trembling of him, his name in command, for at one time he was no more
than a poor extremist, living in a ramshackle neighborhood in Baghdad whose
passion was football and killing, attached to a small local mosque in Tobchi.
For Suru’el this had already taken its course, and accordingly, one does not
criticize what already belongs to the past, he was not here to scorn. For he
knew he was a very narrow man with very narrow capacities, even though he had
letters behind his name, in the form of a Ph.D.

“It is better to be a fool, and learn
from it, but Mohammad was no fool, he was cleaver in his cover up, he was
unlearned in his words and phrases, he was not wise in his deception,”
countered the angel, then adding, “His heart beat like the sea, his anger was
as if he had bees in his mouth; Mecca became a dead city after all the killings
10,000-soldiers strong, he conquered them, butchered them like hogs.The
flies had a feast…, for they tore open their bellies: men, woman and child, like
beasts! Their heads severed, rolled off and on down the streets—; they would
not listen, they would not stop, they simply killed to kill, as if, in a death
march. And then danced and drank wine, as you and your horde are familiar
with.”

Death calm as a statue, did not appear
to understand. He actually blushed a little as the angel cast down his eyelids,
as if in sorrow, and he stepped closer, as to even make a shadow upon the dying
man’s cheeks. Then Suru’el seeing Death so near, said: “It is sad
to have watched you so long taking the nonessential and overlooking the
essential, as if it is superficial this is a man with an unattended mind. It is
also sad—as you well know—you have
grieved while alive, and when you pass
on—soon to be—you will grieve more,
having to witness over and over the
stain of your actions. Life has been
your torment, here in the present, and will be your torment in the hereafter:
like to like: as you enter the land of woe expect no more, — you are like a
tree in the wind, a weak tree that bends.” 14

And no one could see the angel, or hear the holy angel not even Death,
but Abu could, and looked as if he was in shock that no one else around his
bedsides could; as for the observers, he lay there as if paralyzed, talking to
himself, but all feared to interrupt him if undeniably he was having a sacred
moment. And Abu said, “I don’t want to
argue with you!”

Then the angel replied, “Woe to you that say this is from God so you
might make some profit, and gain powers. Woe to all you for you will receive
His promise: the wages of sin!” 17

The Muslim now in despair, asked “What have I done wrong 18to not enter
Paradise?”

“Why should you taste the grape, if you have not fought for the vine?
No, God sees what you have done, he has sent for Death and his sickle, and he
will chain you to an iron ball, and take you down the road to Tartarus.” Abu,
looked at the angel as if he was the Vicar of Islam, with pride, tenacity, as
if his sins were trifle.

Again he asked, “What have I done so wrong to deserve this harsh
punishment?” avoiding to give an account of his actions, or a confession!

“Presumption is a more serious fault than cruelty,” said the seraph.

God’s Holy Angel, Suru’el

Approaches—

Then Suru’el
the archangel, said as a second and completer response—after pulling out of
thin air a Black List 18 of his abominations—that
had it been weighed it would have fell to the very bottom of Hell, sank
to earth’s most deepest core, and did names a few:

“You pretend to be something but God sees nothing but emptiness,
pretending to be fullness, penury in your soul, you say in your heart ‘why
should a Divine Saga6 like Mohammed repine? I have nothing to fret!’ If you knew there
was a good man standing by the top of a well, and an evil one at its bottom,
you would go sit with the evil one, at its extremity.

“To start with, your own soldiers throughout Anbar Province7, stumble
over the dying and dead quite blinded by the blood that splashes into their
faces as they litter the area with black flags, as the unarmed citizens frozen
with terror standby and watch, if indeed they haven’t already escaped your
terror, to become your next victims. Do you think God cannot see this?

“And to your original question, what are your offences, your
contraventions: You have stranded thousands of Yazidis10 noncombatants,
to die without food or water on Mount Sin Jar, killing men, boys, raping and
enslaving women, and girls, creating a humanitarian crisis. You have beat out
the brains of your brothers, those in the provinces you have conquered in Iraq
and Syria, and that is per near any and every one according to your will and
temperament at any given moment, not so unlike your territorial army, whom imitated
you. And you break their arms and legs, fragmented their neckbands, shattered
their kidneys, slit their noses and throats, blackened their eyes, smashed
their jaws and brows, knocked their teeth down their throats or onto the
streets, and shattered their shoulder blades every-which-way. Even dislocating
the thighbones, and cracking the forearms, and you and your horde break the
base spines of many, like dogs, and they, were they not, like all mankind, in
the image of God! And cutting deep into the necks of those helpless and
innocent prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs, with small
daggers, stilettos, and kitchen knives, and beheading many without due cause.
You place more value in a single brick for a house than for one of God’s creatures.
You rape, and call it the spoils of war, helpless women, cutting their hearts
out thereafter, and children as well, and fiercely through the navel, you have
made their bowels gush out. You have set booby traps throughout the cities
you’ve conquered to maim others when you leave, as for the likes of: Mosul,
Diyala Salahuddin, Nineveh, Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul, and you took at will
refinery after refinery, and now you’ve captured Palmyra* heading north for Aleppo and north-east
to Hasaka. And yet you keep fighting with 17,000-fighters dead, from airstrikes
from Jordan and the Americans. Once all
is said and done, you will return to your equated name ‘Daesh
Cutthroats,’ for that is what you are, Daesh meaning death, as you well know(also
spelled Da’esh).1”

The ruins at
Palmyra

Such was the outcry of the seraph who was disgusted to even have had to
explain these wrongs, or transgressions of his, as if he was blind to his
sacrilegious rampage. But is it not
true, if someone says a transgression is no transgression long enough, he
believes it to be so, he believes in his
heart and mind, his own lie, and is confounded that others don’t.

“Islam is a religion of fighters, not peacemakers!” he yelped back at
the angel, as if he was some Ancient Carthaginian Pontifex9.

Suru’el had expected him to cry out:
‘Tell God to have mercy on me, my soul, and thy hands are dirty!’ but he
would not yield, he was not to repent and behind the angel appeared the man
with the sickle, Abu was discomfited.And for a moment, Abu fell into a deep
sleep, reminiscing what had taken place to make him bedridden: a Scud missile
hit his bunker, from 187-miles away, in Nineveh;the ballistic missile did much damage, and
he was badly injured; shortly thereafter, he was taken to another location for
safety.

Asked
Suru’el, “Who appointed you God’s Deputy, it wasn’t God?” As Suru’el knew, he
had proclaimed publicly to the world this.

“Far be it from me,” remarked Abu, “to make any such claim,” and he hid his
grin, like a schoolboy who stole a wedge of rhubarb from a Chinese garden.

“You do realize after your death, there will be no expiation given or
accepted, on your behalf, calling upon heaven’s spirits, or God you whom you
call Allah, to which God does not recognize the character you’ve created him to
be, he is quite to the contrary, nor will earth-spirits, or those spirits below
perform any lavish deeds for you, again this is a presumption on your part, and
that is a deeper sin than unkindness.”

And this small man was fretful and ill at ease. As Suru’el was affable
yet firm, commanding in his speech, but not harsh, polite but easy. And by his
silence, Abu renounced the sovereignty of all things under Heaven, and
expecting but not getting praise for his rampage he called “For the glory of
Allah” from Heaven.

And Suru’el thought deeply on his silence: saying to himself, and with
the very highest pitch of moral power: he has put God in the position of
becoming a commotion, a confusion, inflexible, harsh. As if the common people are nothing to God as
he feels they are nothing to Him; only does he display God as at his corner of
cruelness, and credit God for it, not his goodness. Thus, here was a man dying,
and he places still himself above all the rest of mankind living: with every
attitude, gesture, he employs he does not withdraw any arrogance, or reason for
violence, he cannot even remove all traces of coarseness or impropriety from
his face, heart and soul. What kind of man is this? He is far from a true
Knight of Old Islam, and pretends to be, liken to the old sultan, Saladin, of
the Christian Crusades, of the 12th Century 11.

And then Suru’el said, with dire speech, for he was exasperated with
Abu’s retorts: “Wherever you went you created some new disaster in the name of
Elohim13, and could you have you would have, and perhaps though you did,
think you had forbidden God to learn of your irreverence. I saw you soiling
your boots as you crushed the filth you created under-foot. Bones of your Apes,
and those of the innocent shepherds. It is a shame. Your delusions require some
victim. If God wanted all mankind to be Muslims do you not think he could
manage that at a single stroke?”

Abu shuddered, — and panted un-rhythmically.

“Crushed be the dog that injures God’s flock! You are like ‘Moloch the
Devourer.’”12

Now
slightly opening his eyesstanding at the end of his bed unmoving was the man with the
sickle he had followed him: hence, he was simply waiting, waiting, to hear his
last grasp for his last breath! And Abu aggrieved badly, overheard Death
talking to someone he called the Master—while looking about for the angel he
had been previously talking to, whom was nowhere to be seen —: Death said
to this Great Beast of a Being, with ten-wings, “Your henchman have done
well with this man, like a painting comes after the plain groundwork is done;
with him you will have many things to discuss once he is completely released to
me, and I in turn, release him to you, or your devils!”

Then the Master remarked, “Why is he not dead, but simply laid up in
bed? … is he not yet, an inmate of Hell?”

Death rides his horse

(The angel of God stepped closer to Abu, whose eyesight was dimming, who
had been as we now well know, injured beyond repair, and was on what might be
called a death watch, and the leadership of Daesh1 being
reconsidered, he did not stir, and his eyes fixed, his tongue between his
teeth, his face bluish color, as if he had a noose rushing tighter and tighter
around his neck like a squeezing viper, he was dying, dying, dying slowly, the
angel stepped even closer to his bed.
White mucus flowed from his nostrils, and his limbs were stiff, as if they
had been frozen by the cold during the night. One of Abu’s comrades said, “An
end must be put to this!” The
interpretation of that could be dispensed in a number of ways, but war-songs were being sung, and their army
was so spread-out, that should no one be
bold enough to endeavor to take the leadership and make decisions, they
themselves would be the conquered, no longer the unconquerable, as the world
now saw them.)

“His spirit is here,” said Death, speaking to the one he called The
Master, “although he is not present, it is as if there is no one inside that
head, even though he talks to himself… and he maintains to this very moment his
personal nihilistic philosophy, that is to say, he is the least bit sorry,”
exclaimed Death. For Death knew, he who puts himself wrong with Heaven has no
means of expiation left, lest it be a miracle; heretofore, his fellow soldiers
were not about to have any Christian come in and save his soul at the last
minute, plus, as it was written, concerning the entrapment of sin with sin: for
God will no longer defend the soul of such a sinner from the efficacy of the devil, thus, the sinner is
led captive by the devil at his will, it is a punishment, God had given him
over to the reprobated mind, given him up to sin, to do those things which are
not suitable, being filled with unrighteousness. And this was well understood
with Death, even Satan, Himself, had few qualms with this.

Abu, now looked up from his bed as if out of a trance, no longer was
Suru’el present, nor could he see Death, but he saw at the arch of the doorway,
for many were around him, passing it, going to and fro: the doctors and nurses
talking among themselves, and his generals whispering to one another, thus he
saw the Angels of Babylon, Harut and Marut, renowned for their death calls, and
they said, simultaneously: “We have done our job well, we deceived you” (meaning
his faith: but it was a requirement for them to announce this, willingly or
not); and then Abu fell into a coma.

The Ten-winged
Beast

Ponders—

Fine, the
Master hearing this, said, “If this is so, let the imps and the fiends, the
devils and demon, and the foreigners, and strangers, and renegade seraphim
dance around his bed, and have their ritual.”

And Death replied, seized with anxiety, “Yes, the Dance of
Death, is quite suited.”

And so it was, as the Qur’an, states: “Theirs is the reward for what
they did, as yours will be for what you do…” thus, he was cast down to Tartarus
20, with
those who concealed the testimony received from God! For what Abu had done, was
not God’s will, but his own! 17

((Epilogue:To
fill-up full, humankind’s cup of joy, God who is generous, and the Devil who is
meagre, good news is allowed to arrive on Abu’s death. It would seem he was an
enemy of God and Satan alike. But now he
will have to run fast, high and hard, among other things, to escape his fate.
And although he will be greeted with the greatest respect, and delight and
rejoicing in Tartarus, this kindness was something predictable yet unexpected.
A favorable wind now I hope will soon be brought over the Middle East, where
Abu trampled; unfortunately such people are simply replaced.)(While writing
this tale, and now in the process of editing it, Abu died of his wounds, which
would be Friday, 12th of June, 2015? today being the 16th, to which
it has just been reported on television; he now will face his Maker: in his
case, it would be better for him to remain a live dog than a dead lion, for he
no longer has time to mend his ways!))

Written: 6 thru
15 of June, 2015 (No: 1084)

The End to the
Tale

Notes:

Written: 6 thru 16 of June, 2015 (No:
1084)

Note 1: The ISIS, or IS, or IsiL is
really ‘Daesh.’ The Arabic-derived term for ‘Daesh’ is EIIL (L’Etat islamique
en Irak et en Syrie) They emerged in
1999. Established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian; then his group changed
to al-Qaeda (AQI), belonging to Osama bin Laden’s network, October, 2004. Its
most recently leader being Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared Daesh to take the
name: Islamic State in Iraq (Isi) in 2006. And in 2013, Isi became Isis. Now in 2015, they prefer to be referred to as
just IS or Islamic State. But on the contrary, it is neither Islamic in
structure, although most consider themselves Muslims, nor is it a state
recognized. In reality IS, is the old
‘Dash Cutthroats.’ Daesh sometimes
spelled Daiish or Da’esh, means death. The Arabic meaning is to tread underfoot
or crush.

Note 2:
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of which this tale, as it is referred to, is taken
from his life, in the tale is referred to only as Abu. Ayman al-Zawahiri, is the only one in the
world with a higher bounty, twenty-five million. Abu was born 1971, in Iraq. Loves football. Obtained a BA, MA and PhD in Islamic studies.
He emerged out of a ramshackle neighborhood of Baghdad. He has three wives and
a son of 12-years old. Wounded on 18
March 2015 by a coalition airstrike at the al-Baaj District in Nineveh
Governorate, near the Syria boarder. It is said and believed at this writing,
he is recuperating.

Note 3: Abu Bark al-Baghdadi, with his
Ph.D., in Islamic Studies, proclaims: Islam is not a religion of peace, that it
is or was ‘the religion of fighting’ how true that would appear, if one was to
judge Islam according to its actions.

Note 6: Divine Saga, a term used by Confucius, as a person without
blemish.

Note
7: Amber Province is a large area in Iraq, roads in this area lead to Syria,
which IS now has occupied 50%, and Iraq, whom they have occupied 33%, and roads
also lead into Jordon. It would seem the Sunni are predominant in this area,
and fear the muscle of the Shia.

Note
8: Iblis (the Devil or Satan, the Ten-winged Beast)

Note
9: Ancient Carthaginian Pontifexs: there
was four within the city of Carthage, whom were considered High Priests, called
Pontiffs, or Pontifexs, they also had what was called the 100-Ancients, the
wise ruling body of the government, like the senators of Rome.

Note 10: In
August of 2014, Abu Bake al-Baghdadi, tried to do a genocide of the Yazidis
population by driving them out of their
homes, to starve and freeze today on Mount Sin jar. Creating a humanitarian Crisis, tow here the
United States had to get involved lest they all parish.

Note 14: Insight taken from
the writings of the Dhammapada, by Gotama Buddha (6th Century B.C.)

Note 15: Abu, or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
or we can call him Abu Du’a, or add to that al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the Caliph
Ibrahim,

Note: 16: Sorties: often time used for
military air strikes,

Note 17: References to the Qur’an

Note: 18 The Black List, is a list of
those who are bent in mind on doing the things that are unreasonable wicked.
That even the Bottom of Hell cannot afford to keep of such crying Abomination.
It is called the Black List Doctrine. It is says “Cotton Mather,” when the Holy
God, often punishes man’s sins of men by giving him up to full blacker sins
against hm. It is also a belief of the Jewish Faith, and spelled out in the
Book of Revelation. In the Old
Testament, “Men are punished for one transgression, by being therefore given up
unto another.” And there is a similar belief stated in the Qur’an.

Note 19: Allah, to the Muslim, and to
its prophet Mohammed, was considered God, not necessarily the same God as the
Christian God, in its Trinitarian form. Likewise the Qur’an should not be
spelled with a ‘K’ nor Mohammed with a ‘u’ or ‘Muslim’ with an ‘o’ if one seeks
to do it correctly.

Note 20: Tartarus, the deeper part of Hell. To the Jew Sheol.

* Palmyra, is Syria’s greatest Middle
East archeological site. A UNESCO World Heritage Site. It predates Islam, Hatra
and Nimrud. It was a cultural center of the ancient world.

† Suru’el, one of the holy angels in 1
Enoch (in Volume I, The Old Testament, Pseudepigrapha, scriptures dating to
about 200 B.C.), that watch; he might be what is considered a ‘Power’ in
Heaven, for when he appears, or whom he may appear to, he shakes the earth. The
‘el’ on the end of the first name indicates ‘Angel’

VI

Tale of a Young
Tradesman

According to what
I have been told, there was a young musical dealer, a tradesman in the making,
in Orlando, Florida, named Arontaylor Gordon. He heard that Lima, Peru was a
very good market for purchasing well made, and inexpensive instruments, in
particular stringed instruments, that the craftsmanship was exceptional. And
though he had never been outside of his country before he had $20,000-dollars
in his bank account set aside for such an adventure in investments. Several
others within his trade who knew him quite well, were about to leave for Lima,
for just such an adventure, thus he went along.
They arrived the second weekend in June, on a Monday evening, and, on
the advice of the hotel staff, was told to rest and not to leave the hotel
premisesuntil morning and they would find for them
chauffeuring, and not to worry, that there were many bargains to be had. To impress a few of the staff members, and
prove he was anunpretentious buyer, Arontaylor pulled out
a roll of one-hundred dollar bills, in front of several staff standing behind
the counter, and one bellboy leaning his forearm against a railing, as a
multitude of guests were coming and going per near in his pathway, seeing what
a foolish lad he was. And as he displayed this compressed wad of bills, a very
lovely Peruvian woman of Trujillo stock: bronze skin with dark deep eyes, and
long black straight silk like hair that touched the end of her spine just
happened to pass him by (one of those who will perform a favor for any man for a sum; one
of ill repute) without noticing her, and she saw the wad of bills, with the two
zeros at the end tips of nearly each bill, as he fanned them like a deck of
cards. Said she to herself, as she stood at the glass doors peering back over
her shoulder at the hotel staff around this young gentleman, ‘He is daring or
stupid, he will be in poverty before he knows it, save, if he does not correct
his ways; here, does his journey end. The money if it were mine, I’d put better
use to it, should someone else get it, some lowdown thief, most obvious, then
what?’

This young woman, girl not yet twenty-three, like a Trujillano, wanted
to run up and embrace him, before he put the money back into his front pocket,
that made a large bulge, but instead she turnabout, and went up to her hotel
room she rented by the month for her amorousness escapades. Claudia, being her
name, waited for her personal, and elder maid, had her deliver a message to Mr.
Gordon, whom now was in his room dressing for dinner to soon join his fellow
companions, as she weaved her web to figure out how to get his money. The elder
maid, went downstairs to talk to the staff, to gather all the information she
could on the gentleman, even went into the small bar, seeing a few of his
companions at a table and got into a conversation with them, then reported back
to her paymaster all she had learned. Then went to the gentleman’s room, a
floor below Claudia’s, said: “Senior, a lady of well standing saw you in the
lobby and would like to speak with you at your leisure.”

The maid held a calm and regal composure, and thought little of it, or
so it appeared to the gentleman, as far as danger went; in consequence, he saw
himself far from it, actually he saw himself as perhaps the most handsome
gringo in Peru, and this lovely Inca Princess could not do without him, “Sure,”
he said, with a grandiose smile and puffed up posture, “I’ll see her right
away, right now!”

“Whenever you like,” said the elder maid, whom really didn’t look her
age, but was twice his.

“What are we waiting for, let’s go, go…!” Arontaylor said with repose.

The maid took him down to the floor below, pell-mell, by elevator, he
knew and suspected naught. She had a key to the door, and opened it and called
to her mistress: “Here’s the gentleman you were asking about, Mr. Gordon.”

He was quite amazed at the apartment, it was three times the size of
his, and quite elegant.

“Nice to meet you, Miss…” and he hesitated.

“Claudia Gordon-Tapia,” she said as smoothly as silk. Then she took him
by the hand and furthermore said, “We are related.” This was all new to him of
course, and she had him sit down, and gave him wine and cookies, and kissed his
cheeks, and rubbed his thigh.

“Arontaylor, I am most certain we are related, when I heard your last
name mentioned by the staff, I was greatly surprised.”

“I’ve never heard about this, of having Peruvian relatives, even if it
may be in the form of a second or third cousin,” recoiled Arontaylor.

“Oh yes, we are in that category for sure!” She exclaimed, “Things ill
done perhaps, and long past, but we are related.” Then she called for more wine
and dinner to be sent up for both of them.

“Well, if it is it is,” said Mr. Gordon, bewildered but willing to take
it at face value, why would she lie?

Then she embraced him more and started to cry, kissed his hands.

“I’ve got to go, I have to have
dinner with my associates, and they’re expecting me!”

“Yes,” said Claudia, “I understand, you are surprised, as well as I am
surprised, but your dinner is on its way, and I’ll have my personal maid tell
your comrades, you’re busy, they’ll understand.”

To this he answered:

“I’m pretty tired, and it’s getting late, and I suppose it will be
alright.” After this she talked about all the information her maid had supplied
for her, and it impressed Arontaylor some, reassured him, it was possible, and
as far as the maid, she never did deliver the message, she was close behind
hidden doors.

After dinner, it was quite late, “Alas!” she said, “I have two bedrooms
here you must stay the night, for a lady like me it doesn’t look well for a man
to leave so late, in the wee hours of the morning I’ll wake you, and you can go
back to your room and freshen up if you please, and we can meet later on if you
wish.”

The night was a tinge chilly, and Arontaylor had just jumped into bed
and under the covers when all of a sudden he found he needed to relieve
himself. His breeches were hung over the top of a sofa chair in a corner of the
bedroom, his money still in his pocket. He got up, looked for the bathroom.

‘In there,’ he told himself.

For you to understand what took place next, and what is to follow, I
shall describe it as well as I can: it was dark in the bathroom, and the lights
did not work, so narrow was it, he could not spread out his legs without
touching each side of the walls, it was a spare restroom with only a toilet and
very small sink, seldom used it would seem, or perhaps used too often, and a thin
commode 18th Century style, German, had been squeeze into one side
with just enough room for him to squeeze around it, heavy too, for all the
three items: commode, toilet and Arontaylor too heavy for the beams below that
were wet from leakage, as was the rim around the toilet wet and the floor soggy, making two
planks rot under the heavy marble like privy-seat, when he sat in place, allowing
his full weight to drop onto the wooden seat, the two planks, one of which had
already halfway been disengaged, and slightly fallen, he found himself on the
bottom of a stairway—he had fallen through, both planks over his knees. The
maid ran to her mistress as soon as she heard him crash, and Claudia on the
spur of the moment ran to the bedroom and took the money from his clothes.

There he lay, knowing good and well now, he was tricked. He yelled loud
and louder for help, but all Claudia did was shut the bathroom door, and lock
the bedroom door. He pushed the side the planks, climbed over the toilet, all
bruised from head to heel. Then it dawned on him, his misfortune, and cried
like a baby, ‘How short a time it took for me to lose my entire savings and
investment,’ he moaned.

“Alas!” said a staff member of the hotel, using the stairway instead of
the elevator, after several minutes had passed.

“Oh!” said Arontaylor, “I’ve been robed!” forgetting he was all bruised
up and could barely stand, and he explained his situation, as she called for an
ambulance with her cellphone.

To him, she replied:

“Young man,” said the maid looking up at the big hole he made by falling
through it: “I know nothing about you, but I know about her, whom you speak of,
had you fallen to sleep and not fallen through floor as you have done, as to relieve
yourself as you say, she would have cut your throat while in your sleep.”

Some stood
staring with bleeding from the noses, other swelling in the groin and armpits—

The
size of an egg, an apple…

They
called them tumors, — but all knew it was the Black Death; soon thereafter the
tumors spread; they changed from black to purple!

Thereafter,
spots appeared on the arms and thighs, large and small: death spoke, and it had
its own silent language!

And
there was no medical advice.

Death
was imminent within three to seven days: depending!

No
fever or symptoms, it came and was contagious, like a fire catching seagull, it
was airborne.

Once
captured on the clothes, it became diseased also!

And
the animals, they even got infested: pigs, dogs, cats and birds moved those
ineffectual rags, to and fro…

As
the corpses laid all about, day and night!

It
came by way of China they say, on those old wooden ships, piggybacked by
diseased rats, whom carried the pathogen, the bacterium flea, called: Yersinia
pestis—

So
the healthy avoided the diseased, securing their own safety: abandoning their
properties, and drank wild and woolly, unfocused and bestial—

They
roamed from tavern to tavern, forgetting all laws: human and divine!

As
one after the other, ministers and executors of the law disappeared; all were
nearly dead only a few alive, but they were paid no mind! They were hidden in
their houses.

Thus
no duties were perform, just to bury the infected dead, and ride or run.

Part Two

Neighbors
did not visit neighbors; many went abroad!

Relatives
stopped visiting one another.

Brothers
abandoned brothers, and uncles their nephews.

Sisters
abandoned brothers, as did wives and husbands abandoned one another!

As
did fathers and mothers refused their children.

Therefore,
the sick were left to care forthe sick.

The
servants left, no matter how high the wages were lifted.

The
rich and the beautiful, exposed themselves to manservants no dignity no shame,
just plague.

People
died alone, without a witness or clergy.

The
piteous laments deleted, and bitter tears were shunned.

Two-hundred
million died, out of a population of four-hundred and fifty million, or
thereabouts!

Grave
diggers threw bodies into the nearest burial ground available: be it trench or
grave, or ditch, perhaps even into the rivers, it was all the same.

One
neighbor knew the other neighbor was dead by the reeking smell that drifted from
his abode.

In
houses throughout Florence, decaying bodies laid exposed for days on days;
there were no mourners: 100,000-died in Florence alone, as the disease
continued to travel along the Silk Road with Mongol armies and traders and by
ship.

It
infected cities in India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia as well as Europe, and
Egypt.

Bodies
were thrown over city walls, thus infecting the farming inhabitants.

Dead
men, women and children, were more plentiful than dead rodents, rats, rabbits,
goats and hogs.

And
one to another thought no more of it.

For
the proper respect towards the dead was no longer shown;

People
had reached its lowest point.

To
this end, they went to their rest!

5-29-2015 ((No: 4784)

Ω

The
Black Death Flea

The Black Death Flea has its own history!

From a horse, rat, rag or corpse, without
touching the ground, it can leap rapidly, — with all the quick-witted swinging
skills of Achilles’ sword!

Yet more deadly than the battle-axe, the
crossbow the javelin or the boar spear— but better still,

It can find its way around armor.

It can kill a bear, boar, a hare,
pheasant, if it is infected, and be carried away to jump onto man!

It can climb trees on the backs of cats,
walls on the backs of rats, and will drop down on whomever is below.

It jumps from one tree to another hidden
in the fur of a squirrel.

And the Black Death Flea, does not grieve,
that other people do not recognize its merits.

Its only anxiety is lest he should fail to
set man and beast, heels and hoofs in the house of death.

The Black Death Flea, is more insensitive
than the stones of a verandah—

More macabre, than dancing with death and
the devil.

In one way, the deadly flea, is a marvel.

Written: 5-30-2015
((No: 4785) (Art work by the author/poet))

…

Notes 1: It was common in those days for streets of
the city, any city in Europe, to be filled with filth. The Black Death or the
Great Plague as it was also called, derives from the Homeric Greek, meaning a
dark death, and the filth helped spread the disease. The Black Death was
different than the Bubonic Plague, in that it had no symptoms of fever, or
headaches, or painful aching joints, or nausea, when it came it came like a
storm. The Pneumonic Plague, includes coughing and blood-tinged septum. Again a
different kind of plague. As was the Septicemic plague different. The Black
Death was active in Europe starting about 1347 to 1353, but it was already in
Asia. And in one way or another the
plague would remain active until about 1750 A.D. half of the population in
Paris died. About 40% of Egypt’s population died. It was a worldwide
plague. Iraq, Iran, Syria had a death
rate of perhaps 33%. Eurasia (Europe and
Asia) 200-million died. In 1624-25, 10% of the population of Amsterdam died
of the plague. It perhaps killed between 30 to 40% of the world’s population,
which was conceivably around 450-million.

Note 2: The Yesinia pestis is a
gram-negative bacillus of the genus Yesrsinia
that causes various animal diseases. Pestis meaning: pestilent, meaning
poisonous, to cause death. Also referred to as in the old bible, pestilence.
The flea being a bloodsucking insect, on the order of having legs adapted for
jumping and are parasitic on warm-blooded animals (wingless).

Note 3: I ask the question, after
explaining to myself how it started. I
mean, it didn’t start with God pronouncing I believe, a plague, it started in
China perhaps by war, or disease ridden corpuses, and bacteria, and flea, and a
rat and a boat that brought it over to Europe and Africa, I understand that, so
it is or was in essence man’s own creative dilemma, or was it? Perhaps it was a
test, like Job. Perhaps Satan said “Let me do with the world as I please and
see how many Christians in Europe and worldwide will damn you instead of
reverence you. And thus, came the Black
Death (or plague). It is obvious God could have stopped it, and perhaps did.
But why did he turn his back? Again,
perhaps he didn’t, perhaps he was just weeding out the tars from the wheat. My
best guess is with Job.

Note 4: the two interconnecting odes
might be called (for the benefit of the reader) a Cowleyan Ode (s). An ode of irregular form, or a serious lyric.
Whose structure is determined by the poet?

(Art work done by the author and poet)

End of the Tales and Ode

Back of Book

The best way to describe this book “Osmoses,” (Three Tales and an Ode), is to parallel it: if you’ve enjoyed
readings from: Francois Rabelais, Franz Kafka, Giovanni Boccaccio, Gustave
Flaubert, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack London, Poe, Robert
Jeffers, or perhaps, Franz Boas, Cotton Mather, or for that
matter, even Daniel Defoe, you’ll find this book most interesting. If you
relish reading archeology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, a
tinge of wisdom from the Bible, or perhaps Confucianism, and that old fashion
wet wisdom, on the side of witticism, hence, you’ll find the book
accommodating. It is sensitive, with magic realism, or surrealism. Too, with a
reserved shade of historical data, geology, with a worldwide catastrophe to
fill a few pages of the book, and perchance the reader’s wants. It is in its own right, a small chef-d'oeuvre
of literature, perhaps not on par with the names mentioned above, but surely
not far-off. If you’ve never heard of these writers, my betters, than it might
be wise to forgo this book, and its works. As a whole, it is not an easy read,
but should you decide to read it, take it slowly, it is a page turner, like no
other.